


Nightmare Before Christmas

by kentucka



Category: Fastlane
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-07
Updated: 2004-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-28 17:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kentucka/pseuds/kentucka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They hadn’t invited him last year. But he’d been undercover then, gotten to spend Christmas on a yacht with Deaq, their target, and a playmate in each arm. He hadn’t been alone...<br/>Except Van knew it had nothing to do with being alone, and everything with feeling lonely. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmare Before Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Minor spoilers for Pilot [1x01], Gone Native [1x03], and Ryde or Die [1x05].

Van heard the insistent knock on his door, and wondered if it was a Holiday ritual at this hotel that every single employee would wish him ‘merry Christmas’ and invite him to the Hotel Christmas party. How desperate would you have to be to attend? Not a lot more than he currently was, since he’d already seriously considered going downstairs. Joining in and singing along. They even had fake snow.

Over the past years, he’d always managed not to spend the holidays alone. Dre’s family had invited him every year; he’d even gotten presents from under the tree. They had treated him as one of their own, and he’d soaked up their warmth. But Dre’s death had changed that. Dre’s blood on his hands and shirt, and he really understood. The Hayes probably still saw it staining his chest whenever they looked at him, just like he did in every mirror.

They hadn’t invited him last year. But he’d been undercover then, had gotten to spend Christmas on a yacht with Deaq, their target, and a playmate in each arm. He hadn’t been alone...

Except Van knew it had nothing to do with being alone, and everything with feeling lonely. Businessmen with Samsonite suitcases and ties wouldn’t help. Rich tourists in silk with their poodles having asthma attacks because of the fake snow neither. Only the Hayes could. Therefore, whoever it was this time (Nadja from the kiosk? Bellboy Antonio? Or Simone who works the cafeteria during breakfast?) would be told ‘thanks, but no thanks’ again.

He put Carsten Stroud’s _Deadly Force_ on the bedside table and got up, wondering briefly if he should take his gun just in case, but dismissed the idea as paranoia. Then he readied himself for an answer he wasn’t sure he should give.

The man waiting patiently outside the door shocked Van into stuttering half-phrases. Until Deaq just smiled at him-- didn’t laugh at his perplexed face, but smiled fondly. The tumbling words finally stopped, and Van had the sense not to hug him. Instead he returned the grin -looking foolish, he knew- and waved his friend in.

Who didn’t cross the threshold far enough to let the door close. “I’m sorry, man.”

Van tried to remember what the reason for this apology could be. He hadn’t been shot, no scratch on any of his favorite cars; he hadn’t even been insulted in a week. And those times mostly weren’t Deaq’s fault, anyhow. Billie’s, usually. Perps. Deaq had grown used to him and lately simply ignored Van’s less intelligent remarks.

Deaq went on, sparing Van the question. “I feel like a major ass. I’m really sorry. Ma invited you, you know, I just didn’t ask. Told her something about you spending Christmas with a new girlfriend. I don’t know why I did it.”

“You--” and that was as far as Van let his mouth work on its own before it got him into trouble. His teeth hurt from the force they were clenched together with, but his chest was worse off. He’d forgotten how Deaq had always drawn the line between duty and friendship-- how he’d trust Van with his life at work, but not want him around afterwards. He had thought that had changed, though, in the past months.

Apparently, he’d been wrong. “You wanted to spend time with your family. We’re not friends, we’re colleagues. I get that. Didn’t, at first, but I understand now.” If he sounded choked, Van didn’t care. This day just sucked a great deal more. He knew the feeling from a year and a half ago, when he thought he had lost his one friend, the only one who cared. This brother left willingly. “Mrs. Hayes will be waiting with dinner. You should go home now. Her pudding is delicious, you don’t want to miss it.”

His voice was flat, betraying none of the emotions which burned his eyes. Walking into the bathroom, staring at the sink, Van waited for the door to click shut. He deliberately avoided the mirror, didn’t want to know how weak he looked, didn’t want to let the pain become real. He could pretend, later, that it never happened, as long as he didn’t have to _see_.

A minute later he finally looked up, straight ahead-- straight through, and heard the latch close.

He’d washed his face with cold water, combed his hair back with his fingers, and wished for nothing more than his bed and another adventurous chapter of his book to lose himself in. Just forget what had happened, forget _what day_ it was. He should’ve ordered some whiskey-- Whiskey, not vodka, ‘cause he’d had enough of that since that case with the Russians. And that cop... But only worse memories lay in that corner of his mind.

Van stopped immediately as his eyes fell on the bed. Deaq had left something on the covers (which he’d pulled straight to place a tray on them): a plate of cookies, a glass and a thermos bottle. A business card balanced delicately on the peak of the cookie-mountain. Van picked it up to recognize the _Ryde_ logo, with _his_ name beneath it.

He hadn’t guessed Deaq to be one to keep souvenirs. Well, they’d been _good_ together, as proprietors of the club-- despite their fight over the name, which Deaq had finally won by pure stubbornness. That, and some other decisions where he hadn’t really listened to Van’s arguments. But he had kept this card, had actually kept one of Van’s, and Van was not sure what that should mean. Deaq had considered him to be an equal owner after all?

‘I’ll wait outside all night, in case you can forgive me,’ read the note on the back, scribbled in Deaq’s almost-decent handwriting. Suddenly, Van felt as if he’d won a duel, drawing first and shooting spot-on. Air filled his lungs deeply; he felt his heart beat fast and strong, and the distant chill of bare feet on a rough wool carpet.

With three long strides, the door handle was within reach and pulled open so fast that Van almost ran into it. He didn’t care that Deaq had not passed along an invitation he had craved since September. Deaq was here, he was sorry, waiting on the other side of that door, and Van wasn’t alone. Now he’d make it a perfect Christmas Eve.

His rush startled Deaq, who had sat down on the floor, against the wall. He was back on his feet immediately, still looking guilty, as well as utterly relieved-- even as Van forced him into a claustrophobic embrace. Van felt him hold on as well, squeezing briefly now and again, until Van let go and ushered him back into the room.

“I’m still mad at you,” Van said around a cookie, then washed it down with some hot milk. “But I love your Ma more than ever.” Reaching for another, he grinned, letting Deaq know it wasn’t half as bad as it might have sounded.

“She’s amazing,” Deaq acknowledged wryly. “Hit me right over the head when I told her that I had to go see you and apologize. Don’t know how she reached that high.”

“It’s a mother thing,” Van laughed, picking up a cookie and holding it in front of Deaq. At his friend’s raised eyebrow, he explained: “That’ll ease the ache.”

Chuckling as well at that, Deaq nodded and took a bite, letting Van feed him.

When the plate was polished off, Van stretched, yawned, and Deaq joked that now he understood why his mother had given him cookies and hot milk: She had known it would make Van too sleepy to be angry.

In answer to which Van demonstratively reclined on the bed, supported by the headboard, and demanded Deaq should sing a lullaby.

“I don’t sing,” Deaq said warningly. “But I brought a DVD. The only thing Christmas-like I found.” Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed Van the disc.

“ _Nightmare Before Christmas_?”

Deaq looked to the right briefly, and Van knew him long enough to see that he was a little embarrassed.

And that made Van uncomfortable. “Relict of your youth? Well, it’s a good movie, you know, for kids.” Realizing that hadn’t helped, he backtracked immediately. “But it’s got depth. Funny and sweet. Um. No, no, it’s good. Good.”

Deaq still didn’t look very happy, so Van simply shoved the DVD back at him. “Just put it in already, ok?” And only when Deaq had seen to that and settled next to him on the bed did he add: “You know, I always liked this movie.”

The fact that it actually was one of Van’s all-time favorites -a story in which those, who opposed the idea of Christmas, were convinced that one had to celebrate true love- did not keep him from falling asleep before Santa even got kidnapped, with Deaq’s chest serving as his pillow.


End file.
